speaker-0: My name is Dr. Ashley Smith and I'm a licensed psychologist, author and co-founder of PeakMind, the Center for Psychological Strength.

speaker-1: So can you tell me a little bit about your own mental health journey?

speaker-0: Yeah. So I think for me really, it goes back to as a kid, I was socially anxious before I knew what social anxiety was. And that was really tied into a rare vision impairment that I have. So I have a degenerative retinal condition that makes me legally and increasingly blind. And for most of my life, I grew up trying to hide that and trying to fake normal pretend that I didn't have a disability. And with that, came along this social anxiety, which is really defined by a fear of being judged or rejected or easily embarrassed and really just worried about being negatively evaluated. And I got to graduate school where I was studying clinical psychology and was working in a lab dedicated to social anxiety. And as I'm reading the pages and reading the studies and learning everything about it, there are these light bulbs that went off of like, ⁓ well, that explains an awful lot of my teenage years. So that's what I ended up specializing in. And here we are today where I'm out of the disability closet, very open about my vision and the journey of learning to accept it and how to really live the life I want to live despite it and how to overcome anxiety. And that's what I specialized in for 20 years now, helping people feel less anxious and more confident.

speaker-1: Yeah, talking to people, does that help your own healing process?

speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. think, you know, I'm very blessed that there's a really nice side effect of my job, which is great coping skills, right? Like you cannot do what I do and talk to people day in and day out about your mind will tell you misinformation in our minds sort of warp and twist the way we see things and anxiety will hold you back and you have to be brave and do the things that make you uncomfortable. You can't do that every day unless you're willing to practice what you preach. So it's been a really nice ⁓ perk of the job is that my own anxiety tends to be pretty well managed and I do use the skills that I talk about all the time. And I think in talking about it and writing about it, also, especially like on the writing side, I find that very therapeutic. Personally, as I'm trying to write to help people, I'm actually helping myself sort through everything that's coming up and making sense out of it.

speaker-1: Yeah, what is it like writing?

speaker-0: You know, the kind of writing I do now, I very much enjoy it. I think it's creative, but still science. So it's a blending of what I know from my psychology background, but then also real life and personal experiences. So nonfiction, self-help kinds of things, but it's fun, it's therapeutic. And then when someone messages me and says, hey, this really resonated or this changed the way I think about this, that's incredibly rewarding. Now the academic writing used to do research studies. I'll pass. That's like pulling teeth.

speaker-1: So after researching you, there's questions that I've been thinking about. one thing is like, how do people stay, get out of their own way?

speaker-0: ⁓ my gosh, that's a million dollar question, right? And I think what it boils down to, least the way that I think about it is that you have to think of your mind as a separate entity. So a lot of times we're running around and we have these thoughts that's like, ⁓ I'm a loser, I'm awesome, I'm right, I'm wrong, bad things are gonna happen. And it feels like us. But really, if we can start to separate out you from your mind, just like we do with our stomach, right? Like you don't say, I am growling when your stomach growls, you're like. stomach's growling, right? And sometimes we listen to it and sometimes we don't. Well, our minds are thought generating machines. And if we can really think about that and start to say like, there's my mind, and there's me. And that helps. then when you start to learn the glitches, like what is your mind's operating system? How does it tick? Like, it's going to be overly focused on the negative. That's how it's wired. all things considered equal, we notice bad stuff over good. We remember bad stuff over good. And when you start to understand that and understand, well, your mind is gonna be overly negative and its number one job is to keep you safe. So it wants to keep you tucked inside your comfort zone, following the rules, doing the things you've always done. When you start to understand that, it opens the door for us to start to make braver choices and to start to tune out some of the mental noise, for lack of a better way to put it. Like I like to tell people the biggest source of fake news is inside your head. And the number of times, if we had a friend who lied to us, criticized us, or otherwise was just as unhelpful as our minds tend to be, we wouldn't be friends with them anymore. But we never stop to question. And so I really wanna help people question, what are you thinking? What is your mind telling you? Is it accurate? And is it helpful? Does it help you be the person you wanna be?

speaker-1: Then what are some of your methods?

speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, that's a big one. I think there's also learning to recognize that certain kinds of thoughts, sometimes we can prove it wrong, right? I can say like, you know what, you're telling me people are gonna, like for me, my mind told me for years and I didn't know that this was just mental propaganda. I thought it was truth. My mind told me if people know about your vision, they will reject you. And then 10 years ago, my vision, progressed to the point I had to stop driving. So I couldn't hide anymore. You can fake sight find until it comes to driving a car, right? And then I had to tell people, I can't see, I'm visually impaired. And essentially what happened through that experience was I said, prove it to my mind, not on purpose, I had to, but what happened was none of the bad things. No one rejected, none of my patients at the time fired me, my coworkers didn't treat me any differently. No one in my personal life was like, get away from me, you freak. And so that I think is the biggest thing we can do when our mind tells us something, it's going to be terrible. We can say, yeah, we'll prove it and go do it. And then we gather the data and then we really get to say, you know what, mine, that's not actually accurate. So in psychology, sometimes we call those behavioral experiments. If it's something that makes you anxious. So then we know that as like stretching your comfort zone or facing a fear that's called exposure. But it's really, we all know this, right? If you're a little kid and you're scared of the dark, the only way to overcome that is to face it and then you get used to it. That's the biggest thing is I tell people just go be willing to be uncomfortable. And that's how we train our minds to quiet down or to back off or to tell it like you're not in the driver's seat anymore.

speaker-1: What about ⁓ burnout? How does that affect people?

speaker-0: Burnout is a real thing. And that's something we're all talking about, right? In a post-COVID world, people are really burned out. And the thing is, I think several things. Burnout is just a level of mental, physical, emotional exhaustion. And it really has to do with energy management. think about it as, if you have your cell phone, right? You only have so much battery life. And when it's done, it's done. It's not like you can will it to do more. You have to recharge it. Humans are the same way and we push so far past our capacity all the time because one, we don't really know what our capacity is and our world is set up in a way to make us go so far past it. So what happens with burnout is you're expending energy in these different ways, physical, mental, emotional, social, and not recharging. So that happens. And then the other reason I think besides that we're just doing too much and putting too much out is the things that we're doing to recharge aren't actually restorative. So when people are like, I'm just, tired, I'm burned out. I'm just gonna go scroll on social media. Social media will not refuel your energy tank after you do, or streaming Netflix. And I'm all for like watch a great show, watch a movie. Fine, but notice when you're done, you don't feel energized. You don't feel restored. So I think we're spending too much. and not actually refueling in effective ways. And burnout is the cost of.

speaker-1: Me, I live with ⁓ bipolar disorder too and I feel like I'm in my head all the time. So how can the right mindset help mental health?

speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. There's sort of two things with this, right? When I think about mindset, I think about the what you think and the how you think. So the what you think is like, what does your self talk sound like if you leave your mind to its own devices, it's going to sound like, ⁓ no, what if terrible, bad, awful. So you can start to balance that out by noticing the bright stuff, like the bright side or questioning what's really going to happen. So starting to develop more rational and helpful thoughts. So that's part of it. But the how you think, that's more like where is your attention? And the thing is our mind is really good at hooking our attention, right? It tells us something scary, tells us something upsetting, tells us something quote unquote bad, and then boom, we're in our head, right? We're dwelling on the past. I can't believe that I said that. I can't believe that that happened. We're worrying about the future. ⁓ my gosh, what's gonna happen? Can I stay safe? Can I prevent bad things? And so we're not just paying attention to the present moment. This is why you hear a lot of people talk about mindfulness. Mindfulness is just learning to be able to control the how of thinking, where are you focused? And that can be past, future or present, and that can be inside or outside. So we have to build that attention control is like a muscle. And there are so many things that will hijack our attention, right? Our own thoughts will, our minds like, pay attention to me like a toddler, pay attention to me. But then we have things like our phones and email and the news and all of these things, just trying to hijack our attention. And when we can learn to become aware, what am I noticing? What am I focusing on? And then we can start to choose what to focus on. And that makes a really big difference for mental health. Overall, the more you are present, without judging. So I'm not like, ⁓ my God, this is terrible. I'm just noticing and observing what is actually happening right now. The more we are present, the lower the anxiety, the lower the depression, the lower the anger, the higher the happiness.

speaker-1: When you work with clients, do you see their confidence level rise as they go through the process?

speaker-0: Absolutely. So I'm not doing one-on-one work anymore by and large, but I did for decades, right? And the thing is I see anxiety and confidence sort of being like teeter totters. So like as anxiety comes down, confidence goes up. Because the thing is you're either stretching out of your comfort zone, right? That's where confidence comes from. Everybody that I worked with with social anxiety would come in and say, Dr. Ashley, if I had more confidence, then I would go do X, Y, Z. And I'm like, well, you gotta go do X, Y, Z. That's where confidence comes from. Confidence is really about trust, in my opinion. It's trusting that I can handle whatever comes up. So if I know I can handle being anxious or depressed or uncomfortable, I'm gonna feel more confident because I don't have to worry so much about getting thrown off course, right? And then confidence also comes from knowing if I put my real self out there, it's gonna be okay. Right, for me, was being open about my vision and then getting to realize people aren't judging, or at least not to my face, and nothing bad is happening. And that helped me become more confident about that.

speaker-1: With working with clients in the past, do you ever look back and say, I've made an impact on people's lives?

speaker-0: Yeah. I mean, that's the gift of being a psychologist and getting to do therapy is there's this amazing, there's just this amazing experience of being able to see someone become more confident, to see them get happier, to see their life shift and change. And I worked with some people who had really severe symptoms. And so to go from being housebound or riddled with anxiety to functioning and living lives, like that is truly remarkable. And it feels like there's a part like it feels good to do good, right? Like it feels good to do nice things for people. there's like that part. But then the other gift was like, and in teaching and guiding other people, it's sort of like the writing thing, like teaching and guiding them, I'm growing and learning, too. So every client or patient that I've worked with over the years, like I feel great about the impact that I had, but also very grateful for the impact that they had on me.

speaker-1: What do you do to help your own mental health?

speaker-0: That's I only laugh because that in in the state of the world today I've had friends who are texting. What are you doing to regulate your nervous system? Like what is this? So Personally, there are a lot I have my own practices that I find really helpful like what I would call self-care in a lot of people think of self-care is like Indulgent like the bubble baths and the pedicures. That's nice self-care for me. It's doing something new every week. Like I find novelty and stretching my comfort zone to be a really important part of me feeling okay. It's being on the yoga mat, lifting weights, it's connecting with people socially. And then the other things that I do, like when I'm feeling dysregulated or when things are feeling stressful and anxious, it is walking, talking about it, which I kind of want to roll my eyes. It's easy to say like, I don't need to talk to people. Like I'm the therapist, but continually I'm reminded like we are designed. to seek support when we're stressed and just talking about it, even if there's no fix, even if it's just saying like, hey, I'm having a hard day, sharing that with someone and knowing they're there for you, that's an important part of protecting mental health and then breath work and mindful meditation.

speaker-1: What advice would you give anyone who want to redirect their mind?

speaker-0: Yeah, would, would, mean, mindfulness is fantastic. And I get so many people are like, ⁓ I don't want to meditate. You don't have to meditate. do. Mindfulness means paying attention to the present without judging it. Meditation is focused attention. You can put them together and have mindful meditation, but you can do them separate too. So if you refuse to meditate for whatever reason, no biggie. Mindfulness, you can do that by brushing your teeth with the wrong hand. If you do that, you're going to come off autopilot and you're going to feel, ⁓ this is what it means to be present. Cool. Do that. My other favorite way is I call it sports commentator and that's just narrating what you're doing. You can do it like out loud if you're by yourself or you could do it in your head, but it might be I'm sitting and I'm looking at my computer and now I'm reaching over for my glass of water and I'm picking it up and then I'm setting it down. So you literally just describe what you're doing. Like. someone who's announcing a football game. And that can help you practice mindfulness without having to meditate. But if you want to redirect your mindset, practice mindfulness, practice gratitude. Because our brains are wired to notice the bad over the good, bad stuff instantly gets encoded in our memories almost instantly. Positive things take 10 to 12 seconds. So think about it like this. If someone says, Hey, you did a really good job on that. That's two seconds unless you really savor it, meaning you focus on it and you amplify that experience for 10 more seconds. It's like it never happened as far as our brain is concerned. So that's why a gratitude practice is so helpful. And it's just simplest way to do it is just writing down three good things that happened today, but taking the time to write it out just so you're spending more time thinking about it. But that's like brain training. Our brain already gets the think about it like the mental reps. If you went to the gym and you did bicep curls only with your right hand, that muscle would get really big, right? And your left one would be like, Negativity, our brain's already getting those bicep curls. We have to force it to notice the good stuff to balance out our thinking. And I think that's one of the other most important things that we could do for mental health. The third one is to be compassionate to yourself. A lot of people that I worked with, so people who tend to be prone to anxiety or depression or other mental health struggles, also in my experience, They're so caring and so kind to everyone else but themselves. And then that inner voice, that inner critic is so loud and it's like, what's wrong with you? Why are you struggling? You shouldn't have a hard time with this. So if you can get rid of that should and start to speak to yourself the way you would a best friend or a kid, if you wouldn't go up to a kid who's having a hard time and be like, what the heck's wrong with you? You would say, Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry. Just hard for you. Of course you're having a hard time. That is like a psychological superpower. When we can treat ourselves with compassion, everything gets better.

speaker-1: You can definitely hear the passion of your voice when you talk about this stuff. So where do you want to see your mission in the next few years?

speaker-0: ⁓ my gosh, I think I am very passionate about this. It's my whole, the whole thing that gets me is I, it breaks my heart to see people suffering unnecessarily. Life is hard. There's going to be heartache. There's going to be challenge, adversity. I don't think there's any way to get out of life without something hard happening to you. But I see so many people suffering unnecessarily because of their minds doing what minds were designed to do. So my hope is that I can take this stuff that I was teaching in the therapy office and reach more people with it. That's why I write. That's why I speak. That's why I'm not doing the one-on-one work anymore is to try to reach more people. Cause I think I wish we taught this stuff in kindergarten, like starting in kindergarten, all of us have brains. And if we just knew a little bit more about how they work and how they work against us, I think everybody could lead happier, bolder lives. And that is honestly my reason for being.

speaker-1: How can people reach out and learn more?

speaker-0: My website's a good place. It's drashleysmith.com. And then I'm on social, sometimes more, sometimes less. LinkedIn is where I'm most active and it's at Dr. Ashley Smith. And I have a book, The Way I See It, A Psychologist's Guide to a Happier Life. And if you have a paid membership on Spotify, you can listen to the audio version for free.